Game: Red Dead Redemption
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Genre: Sandbox
Price: $50
Verdict: The best Western Clint Eastwood never starred in
Pros: Beutifully realised landscape and storyline woven intelligently together
Cons: Learning how to lasso can be a fiddly task
Review copy purchased by reviewer.
Game introductions have come a long way since the monorail ride introduced us to the top secret laboratories in the Black Mesa facility. Rockstar San Diego clearly hasn’t forgotten the impact of a good train journey and it provides a very atmospheric introduction to John Marston as he returns to the Wild West to deal with his former gang-mate Bill Williamson.
Of course, weight is added by the fact that you are left for dead on the doorstep of Williamson’s hideout, Fort Mercer, not long after you arrive.
We couldn’t think of a much better introduction to the fiercely beautiful yet gloriously savage landscape that has been created as your playground in Red Dead Redemption.
Rockstar San Diego has also done their homework, spending an eternity submerged in the works of Sergio Leone in order to create a Western sandbox oozing with atmosphere like a gangrenous bullet wound. From the very beginning they balance the wonderous beauty of the landscape with the brutal realities of a life on the frontier creating an impressive environment for players to create their own Eastwoodian legends.
John Marston is Rockstar’s best character yet. Unlike the GTA anti-heroes of old who were mired in crime and corruption that would make Tony Montana proud, Marston is an altogether different creature. His story is one that affords players much more moral latitude than the Grand Theft Auto series ever has, for the first time allowing players to operate on the right side of the law.
There is a real moral compass here as Marston can become a modern day paladin, protecting those who cannot protect themselves, or he can become a notorious bandit going robbing and pillaging as he sees fit in order to work himself up to his final showdown with Bill Williamson.
Naturally the story is set in stone but how the player experiences it is entirely up to them. This is a beautiful game. The narrative is crafted in a way only Rockstar can, drawing on numerous sources of modern culture and unifying them in an entirely original manner.
The characterisation represents another step up for Rockstar. Their games have always featured very colourful and memorable characters but rarely have they ever been emotive. For the first time in a Rockstar title you begin to feel for the characters and can feel quite strong emotional reactions to the game’s characters. One such character is Nigel West-Dickens, a charlatan who rides around the region peddling an utterly ineffective nerve-tonic to unsuspecting farmers and small-holders. His morals are entirely reprehensible and you almost pity his pathetic excuses to justify himself.
Outside of the game’s narrative, there are loads to do. There is the great series of stranger missions which add some exciting little diversions to the main storyline. There are a whloe host of jobs to do including the entertaining horse-breaking jobs which involve lassoing wild horses and then riding them as they buck rodeo-style until they calm down. Random missions to help travellers getting waylaid by bandits or innocents getting strung up for fun are also thrown at you at any time. The only problem here is that these goings on can distract you from other whatever mission you may be carrying out at the time and can cause you to fail time sensitive missions.
Of course you can rob the stagecoaches and trains that traverse the region and any other travellers you come across as well as saving them from other outlaws. There are also a host of co-operative missions that will be expanded through DLC to tackle with friends at your leisure.
Technically there are very few flaws. The horse-riding handles just as the walking and running as in the GTA series. This even takes into account whether Marston is ridie his horse or a strange one meaning that an unfamiliar horse will tolerate less spurring on than the horse that he secures very early in the game.
There are interesting new mechanics that the game employs including a slightly fiddly lassoing system that requires holding down both triggers at some points in order to calm wild horses enough to ride or captured people enough to hog tie them.
The other new feature that Red Dead Redemption introduces is the Dead Eye system which is a cross between Max Payne’s bullet time and Fallout 3′s VATS allowing Marston to pick his targets and shoot faster and more accurately that the average cattle rustler.
Graphically the game cannot be faulted. They first time you catch a view of the region from the top of one of the northern ridges you will wonder if the game has any limit to the draw distance. The weather and day/night cycle are also exceptionally impressive recreating the kind of visbility conditions that you would expect in real life. The greys of a moonlit horseride or the brightness of the midday sun all shine truer than real life.
Rockstar San Diego has also managed to solve the dead-eyed look that many game characters used to have. Eyes move independant of the head, always look in the right direction and have a brightness that hasn’t really been seen in a game before.
The game’s soundtrack is pitch-perfect, comfortably blending a great sense of the atmosphere of the spaghetti Westerns with the freshness of Rockstar’s very modern pop-culture sensibilities. The music really adds to the overall feel of the game and at times makes the beautiful wasteland Rockstar San Diego has created seem warm and welcoming.
Red Dead Redemption is as close to perfect as Rockstar have come in a good while. The game really pops and sparkles consistently. Where even the mighty GTA IV can seem a bit slow Red Dead Redemption always keeps you hooked with an intelligent pacing and a multitude of side-missions. This is one of those rare games that breaks all the rules and remakes them as it sees fit, setting new standards in gameplay and storytelling all along the way. This is true gaming freedom in a way only Westerns could be.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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